Taking on Tesco

He coined the term 'clone town' to describe the homogenisation of British high streets. Now, the author of Tescopoly explains to Alison Benjamin why the days of the all-consuming big supermarkets may be numbered

Taking on Tesco

He coined the term 'clone town' to describe the homogenisation of British high streets. Now, the author of Tescopoly explains to Alison Benjamin why the days of the all-consuming big supermarkets may be numbered

Andrew Simms first took on Tesco a decade ago when he was working on a Christian Aid campaign on supermarket supply chains in developing countries. Tesco, he recalls, was the "most vigorous" in its response, pledging to address criticisms about poor pay and conditions. Fast forward to the company's AGM last year, where Simms witnessed workers from plantations in developing countries stand up and ask why they were having to work in such appalling conditions. "Despite [Tesco's] assurances, nothing had changed," Simms says.

It was Tesco's seeming ability to act with impunity that fuelled Simms' determination to write a book exposing how the inexorable rise of supermarkets is bad for everyone - from poorly paid workers in the field, to small, independent shops fast going out of business, to the over-exploited natural environment.

The result is Tescopoly. Although the book, published next week, does not confine its attack exclusively to the supermarket that grew from humble beginnings as a market stall in London's East End to become a multinational company with a presence in almost every postcode in Britain, Tesco is singled out because of its sheer size and clout. It controls a third of the UK grocery market and has enough land and assets in the UK to further double in size.

"Tesco is an expression of a winner-take-all dynamic at the heart of the business sector at the moment," Simms says. "Without adequate checks and balances to keep markets open, you end up with the ultimate paradox, flying under the flag of promoting free markets: monopolies."

Simms' thesis is essentially that supermarkets are pushing a social and economic "culture of poverty" across the world. Under the guise of creating employment, choice and low prices, he aims to show that the reality is that they are destroying jobs, diversity and the social glue that holds communities together. "There is the poverty of our 'cloned' commercial surroundings, the poverty of knowing the hardship of the people who fill the supermarket shelves, and overwhelming [spiritual] poverty of actually getting to and shopping in a big supermarket.

"Supermarkets have had a terribly easy ride of it. People have taken on trust their promises about jobs and choice, but one of the reasons they are so profitable is that, pound for pound of consumer spending, they employ fewer people. When you see a Tesco Extra hypermarket on the edge of town what you are seeing is the surgical removal of the economic underpinning of neighbourhood and communities, to a sort of sanitised, laboratory environment, physically removed from the body."

Clone towns

Simms is big on the memorable metaphor. The book is littered with them. He draws parallels between chain stores and invasive species, compares our consumerist society to a diet of junk food, and describes unsustainable lifestyles in the west as being akin to badly parked cars in the supermarket taking up too much space to the detriment of people in the developing world.

It is a skill he has honed over the years trying to raise awareness about a variety of issues from climate change to globalisation and debt. "It's a terrible thing to say, but it's not enough that something is important - you have to be able to communicate it in a way that makes people understand why it matters. There is no point having a complex, technical analysis of issues if you can't talk about them in ways that people can get their heads round."

Simms could be accused of being glib if his approach hadn't been so successful. In 2002, he coined the term "clone town" to describe the growing homogenisation of British high streets. The Clone Town report by the New Economics Foundation, the left-field thinktank where Simms has been policy director for eight years, touched a nerve about the alienation of modern life.

Growing up in Chelmsford, Essex, Simms witnessed first hand the creation of a clone town, with huge housing estates of identikit homes thrown up virtually overnight. "There was no organic growth, no economic centre, just a spiritual and aesthetic wasteland," he recalls.

But the report - coupled with earlier findings in Ghost Town Britain, about our dying high streets - laid the blame not just on supermarkets, but on the closure of post offices, bank branches and family run pubs. Tescopoly continues the debate. But aren't supermarkets just an easy target?

"They are the predominant driving force," he responds. He lambasts them for undermining local democracy by flexing their legal and financial muscle against much weaker local authorities, and employing former government advisers to forge close relationships with Whitehall. He also points out how the economics of retail give supermarkets a deeply unfair advantage, allowing them to sell goods before they pay their suppliers - effectively providing them with a free loan to assist their expansion.

As for the claim that out-of-town supermarkets exist only because people have willingly deserted their towns to shop in them, Simms calls it the "M25 argument". He says: "It's not necessarily so that just because people use it, it must be a good thing. It doesn't make the environment around it a pleasant place. It doesn't mean we couldn't design a more convivial way that promotes wellbeing. Tesco's muscle has enabled them to put themselves under people's noses, and very rapidly you get a self-reinforcing dynamic where the bigger you get the more you are able to put yourself in the consumer's path and there is not a lot of choice. There is evidence to show that people also want independent stores in local communities, but unless you manage for that, the winner-take-all dynamic is killing off alternatives."

Optimistic

So what needs to be done? Simms has no truck with the suggestion put forward in these pages by Gareth Potts, director of research and policy at the British Urban Regeneration Association, of marrying supermarkets' buying power with community ownership. Instead, he would like to see every supermarket carry a warning sign. "If it said on the sliding doors that by spending x% of your shopping budget here you'll be turning your town into a ghost town, people would have the opportunity to think twice."

The book offers some tips on how regulators could curb the worst excesses of the supermarkets, from requiring supermarkets to sell off part of their businesses, to prohibiting further expansion by merging or buying other stores, and banning below-cost selling, which puts other shops out of business. It also favours an Ofcom-style regulator for supermarkets to address day-to-day abuses of power towards consumers and suppliers, and for government to indemnify councils against legal costs of supermarket planning disputes. There is also a 10-point plan for Tesco itself that includes restraining its market share, sourcing 90% of seasonal food locally, and sharing its profits more equitably among its staff.

It all reads like a fantasy wish list, but Simms is optimistic. He thinks the penny is starting to drop that how we fill our fridge each week can make a difference to the world around us. "History tells us that radical changes can be brought about in relatively short periods of time," says Simms, who was one of the original organisers of the Jubilee 2000 debt relief campaign. The most striking example, he claims, is climate change, which he has spent most of the last five years working on. "There has been a huge shift in public perception, and a willingness to act that would have been unimaginable three years ago."

Local food co-ops, farmers' markets and loyalty cards for small shops are some of the alternatives to supermarkets that Simms wants to see promoted and encouraged to the same degree that supermarkets have, in effect, been subsidised by a favourable planning regime and business climate that has nurtured their concentration of power. Simms says: "I'm not saying we don't want supermarkets, but the market should be managed to keep genuine choice and diversity open."

Curriculum Vitae

Age 41.

Family Married, young daughter.

Lives Balham, south London.

Education Rainsford Comprehensive; King Edward VI's Grammar, Chelmsford; Polytechnic of Central London, BA film and photographic art; London School of Economics, MSc development.